TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Shoppers swoop
on suppliesThe early bird gets the worm -- or in this case, the building materials. When Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Jose Villa went to the nonprofit organization's soon-to-be-former warehouse in Kalihi yesterday morning "we had pick-up trucks lined up in front of the main door," he said.
It was an hour before the 9 a.m. offering of free new and used construction materials Habitat no longer needed, as reported in yesterday morning's Buzz -- and elsewhere.
KRTR 96.3 FM morning hosts Chris Hart and Chris Reiser were on the phone to Villa's office early in the morning wanting to talk about the giveaway, he said.
"While I stood there, City & County and state construction crews showed up with flatbed trucks. At around 10 a.m. we must have had 50 people poring over the available materials and hauling them off to their waiting vehicles," said Villa.
The government contingent appeared to be work crews with supervisors and included agencies such as the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, he said. A mom with hip-borne baby was also loading up.
The organization will honor tomorrow's 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. opportunity as well as the "holds" on items people were unable to haul away yesterday, Villa said.
The organization is grateful to have kept reusable materials out of landfills and for the response, which will "make it much easier for us to clean the warehouse prior to returning it to its owner next week," he said.
Call sign of the times
Businessman Duane Kurisu's Blow Up LLC has reserved the call letters KKEA with the Federal Communications Commission, for its pending takeover of KCCN AM 1420 from Cox Radio Inc. The call letters must be changed as part of the deal.As the deal awaits its close, the station charges forth with its signature sports programming.
It will air a special edition of "Call the Coach" live from Murphy's Bar & Grill noon to 2 p.m. Thursday starring Mike Wilton and his national champion University of Hawaii men's volleyball team.
Meanwhile back at the FCC, New Wave Broadcasting LP has not released the KORL call sign following its format flip to local music at 99.5 FM, now known as KHUI. The FCC approved New Wave's call letter switch for its Radio Disney-formatted KQMQ-AM 690, to KORL.
Old-timers will remember that 690 AM used to be KKUA and changed to KQMQ back in the 1980s when former station ownership fired the AM staff and went with an FM/AM simulcast.
As irony would have it, KQMQ-FM now plays predominantly '80s music. Hawaii Public Radio uses KKUA for its FM signal at 90.7 on Maui.
Kurisu is also a minority investor in the Star-Bulletin.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com